I'm not interested in arguing. I asked for opinions, WW and I disagree, fair enough.
So, radio amateurs, what do you consider the best approach to dealing with and hopefully making some headway with this issue?
You can blame the testing, you can blame CB, you can blame anything you'd like. The real problem is the total lack of respect, civility and personal responsibility. These things can be seen in every facet of everyday life from the line in the grocery store, the shopping mall, and the behaviour of our elected political leaders, sports icons and entertainers.
There are amateur radio operators that went through the old testing system and behave terribly on the bands, there are old and new operators that behave terribly on the band who have never touched a CB no matter what testing regime they went through.
Personally I find life to short to get all worked up over some fool on the radio (or the internet for that matter). I take personal responsibility for how I operate that's where the self policing comes in. There is a big dial on the radio and the bands are vast, if I don't like what I hear I spin the dial and go somewhere else. If everyone did that the problem would soon go away because there would be no one for these people with bad operating behaviour to talk to. There wouldn't be any on air fight or jamming or any of that nonsense.
I don't remember anywhere in my testing that the government obligated me to correct others behaviours on the radio.
I agree with some parts of that but not all especially the part about ignoring it and it will go away. That would only work if 100% of the people did that and there will NEVER be 100% of the people agree on anything. Besides, what is to stop like minded individuals from conversing among themselves and splattering across the bands? How many times have you heard a truley awful sounding station be told by another that he sounded great? Signal strength is a small part of signal quality and that is where the problem of no technical standards comes into play. Basically you are correct about the respect part. Those that don't know and don't want to learn have no respect fro anybody but themselves.
Quick question, how have the self appointed band cops worked out so far?
Answer: They just add to the general garbage on the band, now instead of a couple guys talking like fools, you got a third (or more) in there arguing with them giving them the attention they crave for which they always come back for more. Then the cherry on top is the band cop complains to the FCC, who then feels compelled to listen to this garbage (which they usually just ignore). Eventually they (the FCC) will ask themselves exactly why did we give these half wits all this bandwidth? Then may favourite question, why should we have to do all this work to police a band that makes no money for us?
So personally I disagree that somehow a stranger over the ether is going to change these wayward amateurs. Now if someone is obviously having difficulty on the radio and truly just doesn't seem to know then by all means help the guy out.
The biggest joke of all has been for the FCC to turn away from enforcement and declare that amateur radio should be "self policing."
Kind of like not having any staffers on forums like these and telling the members to police each other :bdh:
Do you really want to pay tax dollars out of your pocket (and mine) to make sure that the correct grammar and lingo is being used on the HAM bands?The biggest joke of all has been for the FCC to turn away from enforcement and declare that amateur radio should be "self policing."
Amen and well spokenI take personal responsibility for how I operate